Vignettes
by WhittakerTM
Summary: The best and the worst. Tony and Michelle.
1. Chapter 1

_Yeah, it's probably too soon, but meh. These chapters won't be in chronological order, and they won't be as frequent (pfft though I say that now). Anyway, hope you enjoy x_

Chapter One

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><p>'Hey.'<p>

He watched her gaze lift in the reflection of the mirror. She smiled shyly. His breath caught somewhere in his chest, and he stared at her, feeling stunned, feeling as though he needed a comprehensive explanation as to how and why she'd agreed to this – how and why she'd agreed to him.

'I'll be out in a second,' she told him warmly, her hands going up to remove one of her little pearl earrings. 'Just getting changed.'

'Excuse me?'

She looked up again.

'What?'

'What did you say?'

'I'm… just getting changed,' she said, frowning slightly. 'You know, so we can eventually leave.'

'You're not gonna stay like that?'

She looked down at herself, resplendent, wrapped in a simple, though entirely magnificent, white dress, glowing in ways and degrees that Tony hadn't previously thought possible.

'No,' she told him, a smile playing at her glossy lips. 'The bride usually gets changed, then we go say goodbye to everyone, then we get in the car your brother decimated and then we run off to wherever it is you're planning on taking me…where is that, by the way?'

'Secret,' he said, ready as always to deflect her hundredth attempt at unearthing their mysterious destination. 'And don't get changed.'

The beseeching undertone in his voice took her by surprise. He closed the door behind him, and they stood together, gazing at each other from opposite sides of the room, alone for the first time in twenty four hours.

Synchronized, as though they'd planned it ahead of time, they both left their marks, crossed the garish green carpet in two strides and met in the middle. His hands caught her face, hers found their resting place on his chest, and he brought his mouth down to meet hers in a voracious kiss. They melded easily into one another, tasting each other as though trying to ascertain if marriage had somehow changed the most fundamental elements of their attraction. It hadn't.

She murmured her pleasure to him, her fingers tickling his neck and, with a last loving nibble of her bottom lip, he let her pull back.

'How're things going out there?' she asked, tonguing her lips and shooting a concerned look over his shoulder at the closed door.

He shrugged, his arms looping around her waist, holding her snugly, swaying to the low musical drone emanating from the dance floor of the small reception room across the corridor. It was a simple place, an old place, and they'd chosen it for both its charm and its size. They knew they were having a small wedding. Their guest list barely scraped forty, and the majority of that number was made up by Tony's cousins.

'Danny's keeping mostly to himself. Genevieve got dessert wine on her dress.'

'Her flower girl dress?'

'What other dress is she wearing?'

'Oh god…why did she have wine anyway? Who gave a ten year old wine?'

'She was talking to my father at his table. She spilt his glass over them both. Then she stamped on Marcos' foot – '

'Your cousin or your uncle?'

'Cousin,' he told her. 'Because he took the last bit of cake.'

'She's had three pieces.'

'She wanted a fourth.'

He watched her eyes close in resignation.

'I have to go and apologise.'

'Patrick has pretty much undressed himself,' he continued on, ignoring her. 'Now he's just wandering around to the music in his pants and an open shirt, doing these weird little moves. From where I stand it's a combination of martial arts and break dancing. Looks kinda good.'

'He's eight.'

'So? He's giving it a fair try. It was good of Elise to let them participate.'

'I disagree,' she said, bumping her nose against his chin. 'They're my niece and nephew. I have every right to have them here messing up our wedding if I want.'

He chuckled, his lips finding hers once more.

'I actually thought Patrick had eaten the rings or something when he couldn't hand them over.'

She giggled into his cheek, and he moved his hand up and down the silk on her back, caressing her lightly, and grinned greedily to himself when her arms snaked around his neck.

'He grew in the month after his fitting,' she explained. 'His pockets were too tight. It was cute watching him dig them out though.'

'It was cute. _He_ is cute,' Tony agreed. 'They both are.'

'Your father likes them.'

'My father likes small people in general,' he said.

She grinned.

'And Robbie?'

'Robert,' he corrected her stiffly, 'is busy hitting on one of your college friends. Eve?'

'She's from high school.'

'Yeah, well, as long as he's not sniffing around the bride I'm happy.'

'Tony…'

'He knows to stay well away after …well…'

'Yeah, yeah,' she said, rolling her eyes. 'Still, I love Robbie.'

'_Robert_. And you love me more, right?' he asked, his hands slipping down to cup her behind, pulling her properly against him and dotting her cheeks with kisses.

She laughed again and beamed at him, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks rosy.

'Do I love you more than your brother? Just,' she said, her index finger trailing his jaw. 'Married you, didn't I?'

'Yeah, about that,' he said, swaying them in time to the next song, a faster number. He imagined Patrick having the time of his life out there and wondered how many of his relatives the boy was going to "karate chop" before the song was over. 'Thanks.'

'For marrying you?'

'Yeah.'

'Was my pleasure,' she whispered into his ear, her curls tickling his face. 'If I like you enough to look like Chewbacca on my wedding day then I guess I like you enough to marry you.'

He grinned again, raking his fingers through her curls. It took him weeks to convince her to keep her hair down and natural for the ceremony. She had predictably wanted it pinned up, or straightened out, but he simply wouldn't have it.

'I want to marry _you_,' he'd told her in bed one night, her head on his chest, his hands in her curls. 'Not you as you think you're meant to be. Just you. Normal you. _My_ you.'

'I want to look stunning,' she'd told him quietly, her fingers combing lazily through his chest hair. 'Not the way I look here, when you're chasing me around in my pyjamas.'

'You don't wear pyjamas.'

'Thanks to you.'

He'd chuckled gluttonously at that, and drew her closer still.

'Just wear it down,' he'd begged her, his lips on her cheek. 'Out. Whatever you call it. Just don't pin it away. Not on that day.'

'I'll think about it.'

Now, standing there with her curls free and abundant as ever, he gave her an extra squeeze.

'Thanks.'

She shrugged.

'Felt like bad luck to wear it up anyway,' she told him. 'It's up every day.'

'Bad luck?' he asked her.

She nodded. 'I wore something old, these earrings, and something new - that's the dress, and something borrowed, see?' She took a lipstick off the dresser and held it up. 'It belongs to Eve. Oh, and something blue too, just to be sure.'

He looked her over, his eyes scanning for the colour. He found nothing.

'What?'

She grinned.

'You'll find out. In the meantime, you should be glad I did. I could've just saved our house from burning down in a couple of years.'

'You…huh?'

'Bad luck not to,' she explained into his chin, still smiling. 'I could've saved us from going broke one day…or our dog from getting run over by a car or something.'

'Dog?'

'When we get one.'

'I don't like dogs.'

'You'll like ours.'

'Since when are you superstitious?'

She snorted. 'Seriously? I'm not. I just… well, couldn't hurt, right?'

'I'm not sure you wearing blue, whatever it is, or having your hair down is gonna save us from anything. If something's gonna go wrong,' he said sagely, 'then it'll go wrong.'

She blinked at him, her eyes suddenly anxious.

'You think something will?'

He rubbed noses with her.

'No.'

She smiled into his lips.

'Me neither.'

'Don't get changed.'

'You haven't said why yet. I'm going to need a reason.'

'Because you look stunning.' She rolled her eyes. He persevered. 'And because I've always envisioned myself peeling you out of a wedding dress. Sorry, but you're not taking that away from me.'

She held him tightly at that, her lips on his neck as his hands roamed the small of her back.

'Michelle,' he said. 'I –'

'Shhh,' she told him. 'You don't need to.'

''Kay,' he said, thankful she'd stopped him. He'd wanted to say something meaningful, something just for her, something to explain what she'd done for him today. He knew his attempt would be woeful at best, and she seemed to know it too. Instead, she pressed herself flush against him and made to push his jacket from his shoulders.

'Hey,' he said gently, 'What're you – '

'You wanted to take me out of the dress,' she mumbled. 'And I'm not wearing this on the plane so…'

'How'd you know we were catching a plane?'

'I know everything,' she said simply. 'And I can't wait til then anyway.'

'You…' he suddenly found breathing quite impossible. 'You wanna make love here?'

She nodded mischievously, her brown eyes skimming the contents of the dingy dressing room. He followed her gaze. There was a red velvet couch pushed into a corner.

'It's dusty.'

'It's perfect.'

'There are people out there, waiting for us.'

'They're all pretty drunk.'

'The kids are running around outside.'

'They're busy injuring your cousins.'

'Michelle…'

'Tony…'

He groaned when she swayed her silk-covered hips against him, and he realised he couldn't wait for it to be perfect, didn't want to wait, not when she was standing in the dress she'd married him in. Not when she'd just done him the colossal honour of promising to be his always. Their guests, their families, the whole damn reception could go to hell, at least until he'd loved her as she wanted to be loved. The next instant she was beneath him on the couch, and he was trailing kisses over her shoulders.

'So we _are_ catching a plane?' she whispered throatily into his hair.

He stopped and glared down at her, realising she'd tricked him into giving up a crucial clue.

'No,' he said quickly.

'No?'

'Which part of "surprise" do you not understand?' he asked her sternly, his tongue stroking her clavicle, stilling for a moment to properly appreciate the feel and weight of her fingers against his face, her wedding band cold on his skin. He took her left hand away from his cheek and stared at it. He brought it to his mouth, kissing it, feeling a wealth of love and gratitude rushing up within him as he did.

'Love you,' he told her, looking up to find her watching him closely. He knew he didn't say it often. They weren't the sort of people to shout it from the rooftops, or reliably end phone calls with the declaration, or say it every time they crossed paths. Now though, he needed to tell her, and she closed her eyes as he did, her arms twisting around him once more. She looked happy, he thought proudly. She looked intrinsically happy, wholly happy, radiantly and wildly happy, and it was because of him.

'Love you forever,' she promised him, her voice little more than a breath across his skin. 'Now get me out of this dress.'

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><p><em>opium x<em>


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

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><p>She pressed against the door, straining her ears. She'd been like this for hours because today was Monday. Monday meant a lot of things. It meant the men who caught her were back from their homes. It meant they felt refreshed from the weekend. It meant they felt reenergised…determined…hungry…Monday was the worst day of the week.<p>

She pressed her fingers to her chest and drew her hand back. Blood. Everywhere. It was a superficial wound, but she was still having trouble staunching it. There was another just beneath her right breast, a new one…the others around it were finally scabbing over. The men never cut very deep. Just enough to hurt. Always just enough to hurt.

Her hair, singed from the explosion, had fallen away in clumps and her burns still blistered and stung as though it had happened yesterday. There was now a string of cigarette burns speckled along her left arm and the needle and catheter was still lodged in her elbow from where they'd injected her today. A torture drug, similar to the sort Richards used back at CTU, was forced into her bloodstream on Mondays. And Tuesdays. And every other working day. The only upside was that the more often it happened, the easier it got. Her body fought against it so that by Friday the pain was marginally less acute. Then, they gave her the weekend to recover, and so by the time Monday rolled around …well, she'd simply never screamed so chillingly before in her life. The drug was tormenting. Worse than slashes to the skin, worse than cigarette burns. The drug drove her crazy. It drove her to say things, to give up secrets…she couldn't give them anything else. It had to stop, and it had to stop tonight.

She removed the catheter, barely wincing as she pulled it out from the purple vein, and then out from her skin altogether. They left it in her arm during the week, leaving her ready to receive pain at all hours should the men feel so inclined. They were always careful, ensuring it was still there before they approached her. She'd lulled them into a false sense of security that way and it had worked; they felt sure she'd never turn it on them, sure she'd never attack them with the needle. They felt sure enough to leave her with it. She gripped it now in her hand, feeling triumphant. It would become useful shortly.

She stayed by the door for another hour before footsteps reached her ears. She lunged back and slid the needle beneath the flimsy mattress on her hospital style gurney. She scrambled to take her gown off, also of a hospital style, and climbed onto the bed, using the white material as a blanket on the lower half of her body, strategically placed so that her breasts were in full view. She closed her eyes and moderated her breathing as best she could.

The footsteps stopped and she heard the door swing open. Mondays were a lot of terrible things, but they also brought with them the man who would be her ticket out of here. Michelle didn't know his name. He was not one of the men involved in the Cyprus Recording, nor was he one of the men who desired access codes and intelligence secrets. He was just a hired guard. There were several of them on a rotating roster, and on Mondays he was assigned to her. He always came in to check at night. He routinely forgot to search her arm for the catheter, something she'd quickly noted and filed away as a potential way to escape. He also had a gun and wandering eyes. Perfect.

He stepped into the room, and Michelle could feel his gaze on her, taking in her naked flesh. He often stood and stared at her in her gown, his eyes hungry, his hands straining at his sides. Now, half bare and seemingly asleep, she felt sure he'd make some sort of attempt…some kind of move...it was her only way out…

His enormous hand clamped down over her mouth and her eyes flew open. He was staring down at her, his other hand fumbling across her chest, his eyes fanatical. She wasn't scared. She was ecstatic, and she dragged the needle out from under her mattress.

It was never meant to kill him, and it didn't. She plunged it into his neck and dragged it sideways. It snapped off, half the needle lodged deep in his throat, but it had done more than enough damage. He squealed like a pig and fell away from her, blood spurting down across his shirt. He looked dazed and horrified, and Michelle capitalised on his moment of vulnerability.

She sprang from the bed, her floppy pillow in hand and leapt at him, her hand lightning fast as it wrapped around his gun and yanked it from his holster. She pressed the pillow to his forehead, pressed the gun to the pillow and swiftly killed him; the gunshot just muted enough to go undetected. His body collapsed against the floor with a thud and she waited a moment before frisking him for additional weapons and ammunition. He was carrying ammo, but only the one gun. She discovered a silencer in his pocket and almost smiled, feeling things could've gone far far worse.

The door was still ajar, and, after throwing her gown back on, she hovered against it for a while. She had a vague idea of where the men congregated at night. Some of them would be there, some would not. She wanted to kill everyone in the compound. As many as she could. She wouldn't risk her life for it, though. Not when she had someone waiting for her.

They'd told her he was dead. They shook a photo of his body in her face, but she hadn't believed them. Not for a moment. Who would? They whispered all sorts of vile things into her ears as they hurt her… She had to get out, get free, and find him.

'He's dead,' they taunted her.

'He's alive.'

'Where is he, then?' they mocked. 'Why hasn't he come to rescue you?'

A hot, heavy lump formed in her throat. He was alive. He was. She couldn't believe otherwise. Maybe he was a prisoner somewhere too? Yes. That seemed likely. It explained why he hadn't come for her. Maybe he was being tortured for secrets and codes, the same as her…and if that was the case then she'd be damned if she didn't come for him. She imagined finding him, imagined falling into his embrace…imagined having to tell him that she'd lost their baby boy. After everything, after leaving CTU, cutting a path through their problems, remarrying and redesigning their careers, they still weren't free to live and grow and move forward. The baby hadn't come as a surprise, though they'd barely been prepared for the news either. It had startled them, but it had electrified them too. They'd been happy, nervous, but so happy, and for weeks they'd done little more than trace and caress and pat the smooth skin of her abdomen.

For a moment she couldn't draw breath. She could barely stand. Hot tears rushed into her eyes. The baby was gone. She knew she was no longer carrying his child. She didn't know how she'd be able to tell him. She just didn't know how she could put it into words.

She brushed the moisture from her eyes and straightened up when distant voices reached her ears. _Them._ She was no longer carrying his child because of _them_. She knew her moment of anguish was over. Now was not the time for sorrow. Sorrow could come later. She took in a restorative breath, gripped the gun tightly and advanced out into the corridor.

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><p><em>reviews are…well, you know x<em>


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